During the week, Mr Straw stayed at his London home.

And, by his own admission, during the weekend he lived somewhere in Oxfordshire – somewhere close enough to Charlbury to catch the train in to Paddington, every Monday, with Rebekah Brooks.

Remind me, folks, where was Mr Straw’s constituency?

Oh yes, that’s right, Blackburn.

Lancashire.

How the fuck does that fit in to Mr Straw’s busy London/Oxfordshire life?

I recognise that for some people in other parts of the country/world, even these new figures might be seen as being pretty pathetic, but for here, in the primary town of our Prime Minister’s very own constituency, these are strong numbers.

I had a nice chat with the Openreach engineer as he was doing his stuff.

He looked at the guitars, the music stand, the music, the writing-in-progress, the photographs of me and the horses and said ‘Is there anything you don’t do?’

‘Loads!’, was my reply. ‘Absolutely loads’.

And now, as I have the day booked off as leave, to celebrate the stupendous broadband upgrade I shall…

Go to work.

No, me neither.

I get flashes of inspiration that occasionally produces solid gold possibilities, but when I check them out I find someone has got there before me.

The domain name is for the new media website that I have finally finished designing.

All I need is a name.

I thought I had the perfect one and nearly spent money buying it.

Just in time, before I pressed the ‘buy’ button, I noticed the typo.

Yeah, that could have been embarrassing.

So I’m still looking.

I can’t go in to details here, but if you’re feeling creative, leave a comment/drop me a line and I’ll email you the basic details.

We have a four-day weekend coming up.

Something to do with us not having a dead queen.

Or is that Dead Queen?

Anyway.

Back to that long weekend.

The decisions before me are:

• Go to Granada for the weekend
• Go to Paris for the weekend
• Don’t go anywhere for the weekend

It isn’t as simple as ‘choose one’. There are other factors to be taken in to consideration.

Factors I won’t go in to here.

So as I said.

Decisions, decisions.

I am resting.

I got home at 10.15am.

I have spent the day being productive; sorting washing loads, doing a couple of loads of laundry, hanging out washing, doing the washing-up, tidying, reading, writing, emailing, listening to music, writing notes.

I also walked in to town, earlier, for a little emergency shopping – milk, bread, eggs – then walked back the long way. Just for the exercise.

Maybe walking home the long way, with a bag of shopping, wasn’t the best idea I’ve had today.

I’m currently watching Firefly, the Joss Whedon, SciFi, Cowboys-in-Space series.

It is an interesting show, though it has some fundamental flaws. Structurally it isn’t all that; the writing has basic issues, but it is presented in a very pretty way.

It feels like a cheap Babylon 5 offshoot.

The structural issues of Firefly aren’t helped by a couple of key members of the cast being recycled from other Joss Whedon productions, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its own offshoot, Angel.

Actually, when I say that Firefly has both fundamental and structural flaws I’m being far too kind.

It is rubbish.

The foundations are all wrong – to the point where the flaws kill it.

Anyway.

On Wednesday I get my broadband upgraded; I’m shifting from my current 6Mb download to 30Mb download.

That’s exciting, isn’t it?

Last Monday evening I went in to the East End (or is it ‘east end’?) of that London to help Ash (the coolest guy in the world) make a video.

The venue was the office of the music magazine, The Wire.

I shall not open up what was done, who said what or the things that were discussed.

Instead, I’ll just concentrate on the offices of The Wire magazine.

If you were watching a TV dramatisation, and the scene shifted to ‘the offices of a music magazine’, you would, with a sense of inevitability, find yourself looking at a converted loft in the east end (East End?) of London.

Inside the TV set of the converted loft, we would see an open expanse of trendy office space. Large, metal-banded windows would throw an expanse of sunlight across the stripped-pine floor. Artificial light would beam down from spotlights set high in the vaulted ceiling, throwing oases of illumination across the office expanse.

Racks, made from pale wood, would line the two longest walls; open-ended boxes of paperwork and magazines would share shelves with industry-defining books and acres of vinyl – of all shapes and sizes.

Island-clusters of desks, littered with paperwork and stacked high, in hap-hazard towers, with CDs would share the office space; computer monitors and keyboards would be festooned with post-it notes.

Music would be leaking in to the office atmosphere from industrial-sized loudspeakers.

That’s the TV set that the designers would show you.

And the offices of The Wire magazine?

Well, they might have looked something like this (click on the image and when it has loaded, click on it again for the big view):

I’m not too sure what might be imitating what…

In the last few days I have been sent five CDs by bands/artists, music agents, PR companies.

Or not.

I say ‘or not’ because one of the CDs arrived without the sender’s details, without a business card, without a compliment slip, without a briefing note.

So it might have been sent by any of the above-mentioned people, or it might have been put in the post by a friend of the band.

Oh well.

I listen to every CD that is submitted; it would be rude not to. And unprofessional.

Last night we went to a gig at a bikers pub in the next village. It ended up being a very late night.

The band – Doctors of Rock (or is it Rock Doctors?) – are a 70s/80s covers band. Most of their work was comprised of obvious choice music; The Who, Free, Stevie Wonder, The Band and more.

The band’s Big Closing Number was Pink Floyd’s ‘Comfortably Numb’.

It was, without doubt, the best live version of ‘Comfortably Numb’ I’ve ever heard.

It was even better than Pink Floyd’s own live version, which I’ve heard Pink Floyd perform twice.

We didn’t leave the pub until stupid o’clock this morning.

And finally got out of bed just before noon.

Today has been busy; I came home, have ridden, practised guitar, listened to work, wrote work, edited some audio work, edited some video work, cooked, ate, washed-up, tidied, washed and dried one of Vin’s lightweight rugs and practised guitar again.

I’m currently watching one of the things I recorded last night (Transporter 3), whilst writing this.

It is 7.30pm.

I shall be in bed by 9pm, and asleep soon after.

Except I will get a phone call around 10.15pm.

I had quite a choice of things to watch this evening. I have already watched one of the many episodes of ‘Suits’ I have stacked up on my PVR.

Last night, while I was out, I recorded a bunch of rubbish television, for mindless evenings such as this.

Transporter 3, John Tucker Must Die, The Princess Diaries, Muppets From Space and an episode each of Dr Who and Winter Wipeout.

Because when you’re as tired as I am, you only want mindless pap on the television.

And believe me, I am tired.

But also good.

Those annoyingly difficult to get rid of tunes – or fragments of tunes – that crawl out of our darkest subconscious, and move in to the forebrain.

And live there.

Sometimes for days.

I was in a meeting, this evening when an earworm unwelcomely appeared.

It’s been four hours now, since it slithered its audio tentacles (do worms have tentacles?) across my consciousness.

It isn’t the full tune, either.

It’s the guitar riff at the start – and then runs through the piece, in a kind of motif sort of way – that’s hooked itself firmly in to my brain.

Because I’m a generous, sharing kind of guy, I thought I’d let you see – and hear – the kind of thing that worms its way in to my head when I’m trying to discuss important professional things.

It’s fucking excellent tuneage, isn’t it?

The film was well in to the final 15 minutes when the PA announced ‘Because of an incident we must evacuate the cinema. Please leave by the nearest exit or as directed by a member of staff’.

So I didn’t get to see how the film concluded.

And this part of Oxfordshire got hit by a tornado.

Yes, an actual tornado.

I’m not too sure who the lucky one might be.

Now everything is different.

The marriage is gone and I live alone.

I am seeing someone, but it is an infant of a relationship.

And, lovely though she is, we both have baggage to deal with.

I hope it works out, but every now and then I recall how I was blindsided.

And I wonder what hope there is for the now, for the future, and for me.